How to Perform a WordPress Security Audit (Complete Checklist)

Do you want to perform a WordPress security audit to make sure that your website is secure? WordPress out of the box is very secure. However, if you suspect that something is not right with your website, then you may want to perform a complete security audit to make sure that your website is secure. In this article, we’ll show you how to easily perform a WordPress security audit without taking down your site. What is a WordPress Security Audit? WordPress security audit is the process of checking your website for signs of a security breach. You can perform a WordPress check to…

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Do you want to perform a WordPress security audit to make sure that your website is secure?

WordPress out of the box is very secure. However, if you suspect that something is not right with your website, then you may want to perform a complete security audit to make sure that your website is secure.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily perform a WordPress security audit without taking down your site.

What is a WordPress Security Audit?

WordPress security audit is the process of checking your website for signs of a security breach. You can perform a WordPress check to look for suspicious activity, malicious code, or an unusual drop in performance.

The basic WordPress security contains simple steps that you can perform manually.

For a more thorough audit, you can use a WordPress security audit tool to automatically perform the checks for you.

There are also online WordPress security audit services that you can use to evaluate your website’s security.

If you find something suspicious, then you can isolate, remove, and fix it.

When to Perform a WordPress Security Audit?

You should perform a WordPress security audit at least once a quarter. This allows you to stay on top of everything and close security loopholes even before they cause any trouble.

However if you see something suspicious, then you should perform a security audit immediately.

The following are some of the signs which indicate that you may need a security audit.

Your website is suddenly too slow and sluggish

You witness a drop in website traffic

There are suspicious new accounts, forgot password requests, or login attempts on your website

You see suscpious links appear on your website

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily perform a WordPress security audit on your website.

WordPress Security Audit Checklist

The following are some of the steps you can take to perform a basic WordPress security audit on your website.

1. Software updates

WordPress updates are really important for the security and stability of your website. They patch security vulnerabilities, bring new features, and improve performance.

Make sure your WordPress core software, all plugins, and themes are up to date. You can easily do that by visiting Dashboard » Updates page inside WordPress admin area.

If you haven’t already done so, then you need to immediately set up a WordPress backup plugin. This ensures that you always have a back up available in case anything goes wrong.

On the other hand, many beginners forget about their WordPress backup plugin after setting it up. Sometimes backup plugins may stop working without any notice. It is a good idea to make sure that your backup plugin is still working and saving backups.

Automatically Perform WordPress Security Audit

The above checklist allows you to go through the most important aspects of a security audit. However, it is not a very thorough process which means your website may still be vulnerable.

For instance, it is difficult to keep a manual record of all user activity, file differences, suspicious codes, and more. This is where you need a plugin to automate security auditing and keeping a record of everything.

You can automate this process with the help of a few WordPress security and monitoring plugins.

It provides real-time protection against DDoS attacks by blocking suspicious activity even before it reaches your website. This removes load from your server and improves your website speed / performance.

It comes with a built-in security plugin that checks your WordPress files for suspicious code. You also get a detailed look at the user activity across your website.

Most importantly, Sucuri offers malware removal for free with all their paid plans. This means, that even if your website is already affected, their security experts will clean it for you.

We hope this article helped you learn how to perform a WordPress security audit on your website. You may also want to see our complete WordPress security guide for step by step instructions on how to protect your website.